Jazz Bring Road Struggles Home in Loss to Lakers, 121-96

Snyder, Mitchell and the Jazz keep looking for answers. (Melissa Majchrzak via espn.com)

The Utah Jazz were dominated Wednesday night by the Los Angeles Lakers, 121-96, marking the club’s fifth loss in the previous six games after a brutal road trip against some of the toughest teams in the NBA.

Unfortunately, the Jazz didn’t play much better on their arrival home than they had during the past two weeks on the road. The Jazz hung pretty well with the Lakers the whole first quarter and led by as much as eight to start the game, behind a pair of nice threes from Bojan Bogdanavic and one from Joe Ingles. The Jazz led 11-3 but then faltered as LeBron James and Anthony Davis took control of the game.

The first quarter was back and forth, with three lead changes before the Lakers went ahead for good. The Jazz had possession of the ball with 17.1 seconds remaining in the quarter and a chance to make it a one-possession game. Ingles missed a 13-foot shot, leaving time for former Utah Ute Kyle Kuzma’s buzzer-beating three-pointer to end the quarter. The five-point swing allowed the Lakers to take an 8-point lead going into the second quarter, and the rest is history.

The Lakers dominant defense and Utah’s inability to stop LeBron and Davis led to Utah’s third straight loss. The biggest differential on the stat sheet between the Lakers and the Jazz were fast break points. The Lakers scored 32 fast break points compared to Utah’s five. The Lakers got out and running because of the great defense against the Jazz. Los Angeles had 12 blocks and 13 steals which led to lots of easy buckets on the other end. They also dominated Utah in the paint outscoring the Jazz 52 to 34. Lebron and his squad showed why they are a serious championship contender this year.

James had 20 points and 12 assists as he ran the Lakers’ offense, and Davis added 26 points. Rajon Rondo had a dozen assists of his own, to go with 14 points.

Although Lebron, AD, and Rondo were dominant on Wednesday night, Donovan Mitchell had a few highlights of his own.

🕷️ with 21 pic.twitter.com/oW6tSMiySu

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) December 5, 2019

He ended the night 11-of-24 from the field for 29 points, adding 4 rebounds and 5 assists. Bojan Bogdanovic added 23 points for Utah and Rudy Gobert added a 13-and-10 double-double.

Before the difficult six game stint, the Jazz were sitting at 11-5 on the season and now have dropped to 12-10, three games behind Denver who leads the Northwest Division. The Jazz must find a way to turn these struggles into a growing experience. With a lot of new additions and new structure to the team, the Utah Jazz need to learn to grow together as they get through this early season slump.

Mitchell said it best after Wednesday’s game when he commented, “We’ve got to come in and look at ourselves in the mirror, and there’s stuff we’ve got to do better. We’ve got to hold each other accountable when it’s necessary.”

The Jazz know that their struggles have come mostly on the defensive end, allowing 119.4 points per a game for their opponent during those four losses. Utah Coach Quin Snyder highlighted these struggles in an interview after the game.

“I think at the beginning of the year there was a determination and a focus defensively, and it showed,” Snyder said. “More recently, we’ve allowed other things—a missed shot, the perception of a bad call, a turnover—to linger. Our inability to get to the next play has hurt our defense.”

Utah prided themselves on being a defense first team throughout the beginning of the season has seen recent problems. Luckily the upcoming schedule should ease up as the Jazz face the 6-15 Grizzlies at home on Saturday. The Jazz look to get back their defensive edge and end the losing streak. If the Jazz are unable to get back to the defense-first team that dominated during the beginning of the season then the struggles will continue because Utah is ranked 24th in the league in scoring, averaging only 105.7 points per a game.